What is this?
This is basically a chatbot that checks for appointments and sends messages to a chat program when there are appointments. This is why we ask you to install a chat app (or use our browser version).

Who are you?
Vaccine alert was made by Anu Pokharel and Michael Israel. Special thanks to Adam Khafagy for helping make the VaxBot work in your browser. 

Where do you get your data?
We get data from mostly primary sources (retail and state websites). We also get some data from our partners like Vaccine Hunters Canada

Why don’t you use SMS?
SMS is actually quite expensive.  For the scale and frequency we want to achieve here it would not be possible to use SMS and still be a free service.

Why don’t you use email?
Email can be slow. It also gets caught by spam filters. We send a lot of notifications and getting around these filters would be an involved process.

Why can’t this be on Facebook Messenger/Whatsapp/Twitter etc?
Technically it can be. However the ability to send business messages on these networks are controlled and are not free especially when you reach higher volumes. Additionally, sharing vaccination information with a social network like Facebook is a privacy nightmare.